Guest post by Ai-Mei Zhu, Manager – Talent Acquisition at ChartHop
Against the backdrop of today’s highly competitive talent market, candidate experience is everything. This is especially the case for high growth companies hiring at scale.
At ChartHop, we’re delivering a fresh take on people analytics to help companies make better people decisions. In 2021, we grew our team from 30 to 150 people, and we made 43 offers in Q4 alone. I’m proud to share that we had a 90% acceptance rate on those offers.
The secret to our success? Our talent acquisition team is dedicated to creating a stellar candidate experience. Here’s a look at how we do it.
Our Philosophy: Let Our Company Culture Shine
At ChartHop, we aim to make sure the candidate experience reflects our company culture. That means making the entire process as transparent as possible for candidates, investing in people, and collaborating across the organization.
Leading with Transparency
Transparency is central to our culture at ChartHop. Our people analytics platform not only enables transparency in the organizations that use it, but we truly practice what we preach within our own company. And this transparency starts from the moment someone first talks to our team.
We are as honest and transparent as possible throughout the recruiting process because we want people to know exactly what to expect in terms of their role, their team, our company, and anything else that might come up. We share what to expect throughout the recruiting process as well and check in regularly with updates to ensure we’re as open as possible about what’s happening.
This transparency allows us to show candidates what the experience working at ChartHop will be like, as it’s a true reflection of our company culture. In doing so, it leads to more informed decisions all around.
Making Recruiting Feel Human
Unfortunately, some recruiters get a bad rep: whether it’s ghosting candidates in the middle of the process or trying to place people in a role that’s not the right fit just for the sake of getting a hire, it’s not always a pretty picture.
The team at ChartHop takes a wholly opposite approach. For us, recruiting is an investment in people. We want to make sure it’s a good fit on both sides, and we work hard to make sure that’s the case.
For example, we start by building a rapport with everyone we talk to. Our team genuinely wants to know about candidates’ interests, because that helps us get to know them better (and this mindset extends to how we build employee profiles within the ChartHop platform). Building a relationship in this way allows us to really get a sense of what each person is looking for and, as a result, it helps us have more open conversations about everything from the role in question to what to do about counter-offers.
Another way we accomplish this goal is by prepping candidates ahead of interviews so that they know what to expect from each person they meet, and debriefing with candidates after the fact to understand how they’re feeling and answer any questions that might have come up. We also make use of BrightHire to help our interviewers spend their time effectively (for instance by ensuring they each ask different questions) and to allow them to really focus on the person they’re talking to, instead of taking copious notes during the interview.
Collaborating Across Teams
Creating a stellar candidate experience takes a village, and at ChartHop that means tight collaboration between our talent acquisition team and hiring managers. It’s the best partnership I’ve seen in my career, and it comes from a shared understanding that we want to find the right people for a role rather than just focusing on filling seats quickly.
Importantly, this collaboration extends across the entire organization, as we view peer interviews and cross-functional participation as critical pieces of our recruiting process. For example, someone interviewing for a product design role won’t just meet with other product designers; they’ll also speak to a product manager and an engineer since those are people with whom they’ll work closely. This approach allows us to showcase different facets of the role and bring more points of view into the interview process.
This collaboration comes from the top down. We also have an executive as part of every late stage interview. Not only does this demonstrate how we operate as a company, but we’ve also received consistent feedback that those conversations feel genuine. It would be easy for this to be a nerve-wracking experience, but our team is committed to truly getting to know people during this process.
The Candidate Experience Means Everything
The candidate experience is the first impression people will have of what it’s like to work at your company, and that can make all the difference in the recruiting process. At ChartHop, we’ve found that the best way to set the stage is to focus on embedding our company culture into this process through transparency, connection, and collaboration.
Whatever that means for any particular company, taking this approach is the best way to ensure that the candidate experience matches the employee experience. And when you can do that, it sets the foundation for long-lasting employee relationships.
ChartHop is hiring! Click here to check out the open roles on our team.
